Hopefully Francois will have a definitive answer for you mb323323. Looking on Cateye's website and checking out the manual, it appears that the battery's are in a proprietary format. The disturbing thing though is I couldn't find anywhere on their website where you could order a spare battery. Hopefully an oversight on my part.

They have a replacement battery listed. It actually looks like the whole back of the light (the black part) is the battery cartridge. My guess is that it is not meant to be on-the-fly replaceable though, not like the lezyne lights.

Edit: It takes two or three allen bolts to remove the battery. I attached a picture from the manual. I wouldn't do this on the trail.

They have a replacement battery listed. It actually looks like the whole back of the light (the black part) is the battery cartridge. My guess is that it is not meant to be on-the-fly replaceable though, not like the lezyne lights.

Edit: It takes two or three allen bolts to remove the battery. I attached a picture from the manual. I wouldn't do this on the trail.

don't see why people are so excited over this Volt 1200 light. yeah it's self-contained so what.

to me Gemini Olympia is the standout light here.

from top to bottom: Seca / Olympia / Volt :

the first light ( Seca ) is expensive out of the box, and a replacement / additional 6 cell L&M battery is $200, which IMO is downright unethical. The last one ( Volt ) is clearly inferior, but the middle one ( Olympia ) has a great price / performance balance IMO, and the ability to use MagicShine batteries IMO is a huge plus.

the beam pattern of the Olympia looks incredible - a work of art ! they were able to get beam quality similar to the Seca from a much smaller and simpler light head and for much cheaper - outstanding !

if you look carefully starting from the top beam shot and going down, the Seca lights up everything more or less evenly, going down to the 2nd beam shot the Olympia looks similar to the Seca but is just slightly narrower. going down again to the Volt suddenly it just turns to !@#% with mostly one giant artifact instead of a beam - too much light in the nearfield, almost none on the sides, and an ugly abrupt transition.

yes i understand i am comparing a self-contained system to wired systems. the Volt isn't bad for a self-contained light, but the obsession with self-contained is IMO irrational.

as for the Olympia - yes it is unfortunate that they lied about the Lumens, the cooling looks questionable for the output, and the mount is not what i would prefer but if we were looking at beam patterns alone this would be my top pick !

Yeah, got an email from Cateye and they said it can be replaced but you do have to buy their battery. They don't have the cost yet but said around 100. That takes me out and it's is probably too big for the helmet anyway.

So far I still can't beat my cheap Ultrafire 502b w/ several Panasonic 3100 mah batteries. 15 for the light and about 20 for the batteries and charger and yes, I can replace on the trail no issues.

Still waiting for Dinotte to come out w/ something awesome that is self contained and very small for the helmet.

Have you checked out the Cygolite Expillion 800. New product 800 lumens and an hour and a half on the highest setting. Self contained with interchangeable 18650's on the fly. Our MEC in Vancouver has them listed at $109.

Yeah, got an email from Cateye and they said it can be replaced but you do have to buy their battery. They don't have the cost yet but said around 100. That takes me out and it's is probably too big for the helmet anyway.

So far I still can't beat my cheap Ultrafire 502b w/ several Panasonic 3100 mah batteries. 15 for the light and about 20 for the batteries and charger and yes, I can replace on the trail no issues.

Still waiting for Dinotte to come out w/ something awesome that is self contained and very small for the helmet.

Have you checked out the Cygolite Expillion 800. New product 800 lumens and an hour and a half on the highest setting. Self contained with interchangeable 18650's on the fly. Our MEC in Vancouver has them listed at $109.

Cygolite... It's very frustrating dealing with them since they don't want to send lights. They just do not want independent reviews of their lights.

We might purchase them for the review but they don't like that either. Just strange.

I'm curious how the Magicshine 880 with new xm-l2 stacks up against similarly priced lights. Jim from action led produced a nice graph which showed a noticeable improvement in performance. Any chance you could review this light?

Went to the integrated sphere lab yesterday. Gloworms all measured up to claims, Bontrager Ion 700 measured in at 682 lumens. We got 4250 lumens now for the Lupine Betty as we had better cooling. Detailed charts to follow. Meanwhile, here's a really cool Wind Speed simulator for our extended run time tests.

Deca Drive is enough and is better I think. $50 cheaper, longer run time and wider pattern with the 3 LEDs.

fc

Thank you. It would be interesting to see how Cygolite's Expilion 800 compares with the Deca Drive's 800 lumen rating and features. Keep up the great job providing such objective and comprehensive reviews.

Thank you. It would be interesting to see how Cygolite's Expilion 800 compares with the Deca Drive's 800 lumen rating and features. Keep up the great job providing such objective and comprehensive reviews.

In the past, Cygolites have been ok. Decent beam with good light level programming. But they measured about 10-15% lower than lumen claims on average in their Expilion line.

the beam pattern of the Olympia looks incredible - a work of art ! they were able to get beam quality similar to the Seca from a much smaller and simpler light head and for much cheaper - outstanding !

as for the Olympia - yes it is unfortunate that they lied about the Lumens, the cooling looks questionable for the output, and the mount is not what i would prefer but if we were looking at beam patterns alone this would be my top pick !

I agree with you on this one. The Olympia lights up the entire tunnel with a very even pattern and still allows you to see directly in front. The Lupines are so intense up front you can barely read the 45 degree and 20' marks. Everyone has been throwing Gemini under the bus for the lumens claims, and they threw the baby under the bus with the bathwater.

I have the Magicshine Eagle 600 and will publish soon. It is awesome. About 610 lumens and the digital readout really works and it adds value. It displays run time or charge time in real-time based on the current light level.